Consumer trust in b2c e-commerce empirical evidence from individual car buyers in Tanzania

Lack of physical interactions between buyers and sellers in e-Commerce makes trust to become a critical component of a successful online shopping. Consumers who want to buy goods from a web vendor have to trust before they decide to engage in an online shopping as it is associated with some risks. That being the case, building consumers’ trust on the internet is a crucial aspect for growth and development of e-commerce. Therefore, it is important to learn how to manage trust in e-commerce. The purpose of this dissertation was to get a better understanding of consumer trust in e-commerce. The researcher wanted to find the important factors that help to establish consumers’ trust in e-commerce by finding what triggers consumer trust and assess consumers’ perceptions on the importance of some selected factors for them to feel trust when conducting online transactions. The researcher tried to assess consumers’ perceptions on the importance of some selected factors for them to feel trust when conducting online transactions.The researcher found that individual’s perception towards purchasing goods through online methods was overwhelmingly positive despite the fact that only few among the respondents used the method to buy their cars. 75.4% of respondents had positive perception towards purchasing their cars online. However, the actual numbers of respondents who used the online method to purchase car was only 31 of the surveyed people (34.4%). The majority 59 respondents (65.6%) purchased their car offline. Consumers who want to use the method in the country face a number of trust related challenges. It is upon all involved parties to work out on those challenges which may hinder the development of e-commerce.